Jake's Big Adventures

By J. William Turner

A three-part story of 15,900 words about an Australian boy, Jake, nine years-old, who lives in a seaside town called Coconut.

 

Part one, Jake's Magical Easter Adventure - Jake spends his Easter holiday with a backpack exploring his home-town and the world beyond, where he meets very strange people, before joining up with two aboriginal friends, Ben and Ken. They hike into mystical coastal mountains to discover a fantasy world with amazing wildlife.

While sleeping in a beach hut, an angry giant mud crab with huge claws walks out of the sea looking for tasty morsels to eat.

Jake suddenly wakes up in bed at home.

 

Part two, Jake's Crazy Christmas Adventure - Jake travels with his mother to visit relatives in Tromso, northern Norway. Knowing they were close to the North Pole, he was hoping he might see Santa Claus, which happens on his first night when one of Santa's elves, takes a jet-lagged Jake on a high-speed journey from his bedroom to Santa's Village for a memorable five-minute meeting with the big man, himself, before returning the boy to Tromso. When he tells his mother, she says it was just another dream, like the one at Easter, caused by jet-lag, but Jake knows this time it was real.

 

Part three, Jake's Great New Year's Day Adventure - Jake returns from Norway on New Year's Eve. Next day, despite more jet-lag, he goes looking for his best friend, Cooper, plus Ben and Ken. They end up at the home of aboriginal elder, Grandpa Lionel, who, after hearing of Jake's visit to the North Pole, decides that the boy's jet-lag makes him suitable for some 'mind travel'. He places Jake in a trance, before sending him back to the Dreamtime, where Jake witnesses and reacts to several stories of aboriginal lore, which also teach him important life-lessons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. William Turner
• Release date: Aug 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781370077397

J. William Turner

J. William Turner (aka James Turner) was born in Reading, England, forty miles west of London, in the late 1950's, and migrated with his family to south-eastern Australia in the mid 1960's. The youngest of three children James spent the last seven years of his education at a boys' private school in the coastal city of Geelong. During his time here, he became a senior N.C.O. in the school's army cadet unit, having undergone basic, practical military training for promotion, on a regular army base for two weeks in 1971, as a fourteen-year-old, at the end of the nineth grade. After finishing the twelfth grade, he attended university to study science, but discontinued his course after two years. In the early 1980's James gained his private pilot licence, was a volunteer operational member of St John Ambulance for ten years, and travelled to many parts of inland Australia and overseas, including two visits to the U.S.A.. He also penned the initial draft of Storm Ridge, the first of the four installments of Dangerous Days, in 1979, loosely based on a similar school hike he did in 1970 as an eighth-grader. Later, in 1989, Paddle Hard was drafted, based on an actual murder in Geelong in the mid 1970's, and his own experience at canoeing. Another ten years later, he drafted Outback Heroes after several visits to several parts of the vast Australian outback. Enemies Within was written just four years afterwards to give closure to the unanswered questions in Outback Heroes, and is set back in London, near to his ancestral roots. James has always liked putting pen to paper, and has had two articles published in Australian aviation magazines (1996 and 2008). Over a six-month period from January to June, 2004, James wrote the first three stories of another, four-part, fictional autobiography, yet to be published, entitled Blades, about the traumatic and difficult teenage years of a 'top-gun' helicopter pilot named Julian. Set in the late 1990's, in Darwin, Melbourne, the central Australian outback, and southern California, Blades also reinroduces the three main child characters from Dangerous Days, now adults aged in their late-twenties, and their relationship with Julian. These three stories are entitled Street Kid, High Country, and California Dreaming. The final story, Aftermath, was completed in two-and-a-half months just midway through 2008, to bring Julian's life story almost to the present day.

Book preview

Jake's Big Adventures

J. William Turner

Published by J. William Turner, 2022.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

JAKE'S BIG ADVENTURES

First edition. August 20, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 J. William Turner.

ISBN: 978-1370077397

Written by J. William Turner.

Also by J. William Turner

Blades

Blades 1 - Street Kid

Blades 2 - High Country

Blades 3 - California Dreaming

Blades

Blades 4 - Aftermath

Dangerous Days

Dangerous Days 1 - Storm Ridge

Dangerous Days 2 - Paddle Hard

Dangerous Days 3 - Outback Heroes

Dangerous Days 4 - Enemies Within

Dangerous Days

Jake's Big Adventures

Jake's Magical Easter Adventure

Jake's Crazy Christmas Adventure

Jake's Great New Year's Day Adventure

Standalone

Fat To Fast

Jake's Big Adventures

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By J. William Turner

Jake's Big Adventures

Sign up for J. William Turner's Mailing List

Also By J. William Turner

About the Author

JAKE’S BIG ADVENTURES

By J. William Turner

Contents

JAKE’S MAGICAL EASTER ADVENTURE  -  Page 1

(Copyright 2009)

JAKE’S CRAZY CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE  -  Page 15

(Copyright 2016)

JAKE’S AMAZING DREAMTIME ADVENTURE  -  Page 31

(Copyright 2016)

Jake is a young boy from the east coast of Australia who lives in the small tropical town of Coconut. Like all young boys with big imaginations, he loves to have fun and adventure, and Coconut is just the place to be, many children to play with and unusual grown-up people to teach them about life.

But Jake is luckier than most boys this year, with an imagination and good fortune that allows him to have the best Easter experience ever in his life, a chance to fly halfway around the world to a very cold, icy city, one so different from warm, humid Coconut, and an offer to travel back in time to a place before people.

Easter, Christmas and New Year’s Day will always hold special memories for him as he grows up.

Jake’s Big Adventures tells these three unusual adventure stories from Jake’s life filled with wonder, magic, craziness and amazement.

JAKE’S MAGICAL EASTER ADVENTURE.

It was the last Thursday night in late-March, and Jake went to bed feeling really happy. Term One at the town’s junior school, Coconut Primary, had just ended. Tomorrow was the first day of the Easter holidays, as he was looking forward to the fun he was going to have. That was all Jake could think about as he drifted off to sleep.

GOOD FRIDAY (morning).

The sun was already high in the sky when Jake found himself suddenly aware of the world around him. No school for two weeks! he said happily. This is going to be so cool! But what should I do? After thinking quietly for a few seconds, Jake had a good idea.

I know, I’ll go on a long walk, an Easter adventure, to see the town and all its silly people, he thought, as he rose from his bed, put on his favourite T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts with frayed hems, and found his rucksack in the bottom of the bedroom wardrobe.

Into the rucksack he put a tent, sleeping bag, box of matches, a water bottle, fishing line plus hooks and sinkers, a large pocket-knife, plastic plate and cup, and extra clothes. But he did not pack any food. He wanted to try living off the land, especially bananas, but eat ‘take-away’ if he could not find any food in the forest. In his pants pocket was all of the money he had saved in six months from his weekly allowance.

Before leaving home, Jake made himself breakfast. He ate two duck eggs on toast, four large wattle-seed biscuits covered with sweet sherbet powder, and milk from a water buffalo. With his meal he drank a glass of pure wild-blackberry juice.

When his tummy was full, he stepped out through the front door, and set off on his long walk. Away in the distance, he saw a huge black cloud. A big tropical rain storm was coming, and the church bell rang to warn everyone. But Jake did not worry. The rain would give his mango and paw-paw trees a good watering.

A minute later, he saw a man, wearing a big hat, hitting the trunk of a palm tree with a plastic toy baseball bat. The palm tree was full of sleeping fruit bats. Jake asked, Why are you doing that?

The man yelled as loudly as he could, I’m trying to wake them up! Their snoring is too loud!

What a strange grown-up person, Jake said to himself, and he walked on until the rainstorm came.

To keep dry, he stood under a tall oak tree while the rain fell all around him. Then the deluge stopped, the sun came out, and Jake started off on his Easter adventure once more.

Twenty minutes later, he saw another man wearing a red-white-and-blue clown suit. This man was throwing giant pineapples at a